FEMA Approves an Additional $128 Million in Assistance to Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican's in D.C. calling on Congress for help. "A total lack of accountability says the Governor", Trump tweeted. Congress is debating how to fix the program with a December deadline to keep it afloat. And in the capital of Nairobi, riot police fired tear gas on demonstrators who defied government orders and tried to march on the central business district.

"What is projected over there is one thing and what is happening here is another", the mayor of the mountainous municipality of Orcovis, Jesús Colón, told Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Día (link in Spanish.) "They talk about percentages of electricity and water every day; I don't see that percentage at all". In other words, the minimal infrastructure is the minimal need. Air Force medical personnel are setting up in the northwestern part of the island, he said, and the medical crew aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort has seen more than 100 patients since arriving in the region. In America, the political calculus is often different, Trainor said, with elected leaders often citing higher estimates for eventual death tolls that can then be revised downward.

That's the takeaway from U.S. Rep. Scott Perry's ill-conceived remarks to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo earlier this week. "Everybody around this table and everybody watching can be very proud of what's taken place in Puerto Rico".

People use a rope line to cross the San Lorenzo de Morovis river in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico.

"It's what we deserve".

Forty-five deaths in Puerto Rico have been blamed on Maria, about 85 per cent of Puerto Rico residents still lack electricity and the Government said it hoped to have electricity restored completely by March.

Meanwhile, Trump seemed to be working hard for the title of "comforter in chief" following Harvey, the first major natural disaster to affect his presidency.

The EPA said: "The EPA is gathering more information about the quality of water from the wells associated with our Dorado groundwater contamination site, as well as other Superfund sites in Puerto Rico".

His visit came after President Trump questioned the resources the territory needed to recover from Hurricane Maria. "But if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here with, really, a storm that was just totally overpowering - nobody has ever seen anything like this".

Prior to the storm, patients with a medical marijuana cards could only pick up their prescriptions from the single dispensaries that they were assigned to, but that rule has undergone a temporary change. There have been several cases of Leptospirosis, a bacterial disease spread through cattle urine that can result in death. And some of your colleagues have asked for an investigation into the likely underreporting of fatalities.

(EPA / Shutterstock; Mario Tama / Getty Images) stroyed home in Aibonito, Puerto Rico, three weeks after Hurricane Maria hit.

Most of the troops in the U.S. commonwealth are logisticians, medical specialists and aviation specialists, Buchanan said. And in some areas, conditions are much worse than those figures suggest.

"Everything in the government has collapsed, not being able to document it, doesn't mean it's not happening", Pascual commented on the situation.

The indignity of a loan rather than straight relief funding is only furthering the sense of injustice Puerto Ricans feel.

"It is shameful that President Trump is threatening to abandon these Americans when they most need the Federal Government's help", the second-ranking House Democrat Steny Hoyer said. For the week, all three indices gained a fraction of a percent. "More than 15,000 people have been forced into shelters, and the storm has devastated the lives of thousands of others". "Give folks the opportunity to reclaim their lands, reclaim these local livable economies".

Politicians do like clear answers but are often also happy to take advantage of uncertainty.